


Mrs. and Mrs. Hytes-Mateo

by strugglingateverything



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-02-26 16:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18720847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strugglingateverything/pseuds/strugglingateverything
Summary: This is the Mr. and Mrs. Smith au that no one wanted but what everyone deserves.





	1. Chapter 1

“Okay, guess I’ll go first... um we don’t really need this but we’ve been married for five years-“Brooke starts off with a slightly nervous tone.

“6” Vanessa loudly interrupts Brooke. “It’s been 6 years”

“Right, 5 or 6 years, and we’re doing a check up to basically give us a chance to poke around the engine, y’know maybe change the oil-“

“Bitch you know I don’t know anything about cars. Over here refer-, reef-, talking about engines and shit.” 

“Well, guess we should pop that hood open.” The therapist states to ease both women who look visibly uncomfortable with the tension Vanessa unknowingly clouded the room with after she finished talking.

“How happy are you two as a couple?” 

“8” Vanessa both confidently and resolutely says while Brooke stays silent.

“Wait, is 10 us being perfectly happy and 1 being totally miserable? Or?”

“Just respond with whatever comes to mind” The therapist says once again to Brooke who still looks like she would rather be anywhere but in that room.

“Okay”

“8”

“8” 

They both respond simultaneously.

“How often do you have sex?”

“Who dat? I don’t understand the question” Vanessa say with a confused face despite the easy question.

“Yeah, I’m definitely lost.” Brooke says with an inquisitive face. “Is this another 1 to 10 thing?”

“Yeah cause it’s like is 1 only a lil bit or like nothing ‘cause like ain’t 0 nothing” Vanessa chuckles nervously avoiding eye contact with Brooke.

“How about this past week?” The therapist tries to help them out a little because usually this question is not met with such avoidance.

Still both women stare blankly at him while also avoiding eye contact with each other, so he almost decides to move on.

“Are we including the weekend?” Brooke tries but still he is not given an answer.

“Okay then, can you describe how you two first met?” He asks hoping that it will relax them both just a smidge.

“Oh it was in Colombia” Vanessa says with a small smile as if she was watching the memory in her head.

“Bogota” Brooke says “5 years ago” 

“6” Vanessa once again corrects her.

“Right, 5 or 6 years ago” Brooke says faking a smile.

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6 years ago  
Bogota, Colombia

A helicopter flies over a lush forest with small groups of homes nestled in between branches and leaves. At the same time there are multiple buildings on fire and copious amounts of smoke in the air. 

Inside of one of those buildings stands Brooke.

Fake reading the newspaper while nursing a drink.

While also hearing the continuous almost deafening sounds on gunfire.

She raises her head after hearing multiple Colombian police officers enter the hotel.

Brooke turns to the bartender with the adequate Spanish she knows. “Que pasa?” 

The bartender answers with ‘Someone shot the Gila Monster’ and that ‘The police are looking for tourists who are traveling alone’ in Spanish. The ladder is the only piece of information that surprises Brooke, but she doesn’t have time to panic or even think of a plan. 

She makes eye contact with one of the policemen and once he sees her all by her lonesome.

Standing at the bar with shades and a white shirt he immediately asks if she is alone in Spanish. 

To buy herself some time Brooke pretends to not understand knowing perfectly well what he was asking of her.

Then a beautiful tanned-skinned woman barges her way through the glass hotel doors. She makes eye contact with Brooke the minute she walks in.

She’s interrupted by one of the policemen loudly asking for her passport after following her from the outside. 

And in those five seconds Brooke knows that she is well and truly fucked because this woman who is clearly ignoring questions and looking stunning is the most perfect person she has ever seen.

She can see the woman get into a loud argument with the policeman asking about whether she is alone as she slowly makes her way to where Brooke is standing.

Not knowing if she will have to shoot her way out, Brooke grips the gun hidden underneath her shirt right on the small of her back. Before quickly releasing it as the woman is being escorted out of the hotel. 

Before that can happen Brooke steps towards them and saves both of them.

“No, no, no, esta bien, she’s with me.” Brooke calmly says to the officers guiding the unknown woman away. 

They let them both go and as Brooke guided both herself and the mysterious woman with a hand on her back to her room she can’t help but let out a breath of relief once the door closes.

Curiously the woman has her ear against the door listening to the officers question the other guests in the hotel.

As she is still catching her breath and trying not to look at the woman she hears a whisper.

“I’m Vanessa” is said into the air with an almost soft gravelly tone.

“Brooke.” 

As they shake hands the ground and the building both shake as well from explosions happening from unseen locations.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Brooke.” Vanessa says with a flirty smile that is doing things to Brooke’s already weakened resolve towards this woman.

While still holding hands Brooke caresses her soft hands while they for some unknown reason to both giggle at tricking the policemen just beyond the door that they were together. 

In between giggles Brooke manages to get out,”It’s definitely nice to meet you Vanessa.” 

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	2. Chapter 2

The eventful day brings Vanessa to sitting right next to a tall blonde.

“To dodging bullets.” 

They both say in unison as their glasses clink together. The sharp burn of the tequila does nothing to jolt Vanessa from the cocoon like warmth that this new acquaintance has brought her.

Hearing the music and seeing others dance, Vanessa decides to get in on the fun. 

Preferably with the woman staring at her, staring with those intense ass blue eyes, across the table.

“So I know she talks” she says while abruptly standing from her chair. “But do she dance.” Vanessa adds to goad her into doing what she wants.

Before she can completely walk away she can see Brooke look at her while leaning back on her chair with a sly grin. 

As she finally walks into the makeshift dance floor, all while swaying her hips, she can feel Brooke’s eyes on her backside.

While finally finishing up her drink, she stares at Brooke while throwing the glass into a burning metal barrel. Reveling in the sudden but brief warmth that the alcohol makes with the flame as it hits one side of her body.

Getting more and more into the music, Vanessa closes her eyes slightly while raising her arms above her head trying to give Brooke a show. Moving her body to the beat, she can see Brooke slowly moving towards her. Unsure if she is being watched like prey to a predator, if the dark but hungry look in Brooke’s eyes is anything to take note of, she takes the hand offered to her once Brooke gets close enough. And they dance to the beat, swaying together as Vanessa wraps her deceptively strong arms around Brooke more than defined body. 

Their dance is quickly becoming a game of chicken as their lips almost touch before the other moves away as the dance naturally comes to an end.

Just as Vanessa is about to be spun into Brooke’s arms a loud rumble of thunder rings out into the open air. The thunder and lightning still rage on as Vanessa starts grinding her back to Brooke’s front .

And finally after what seems like years of anticipation their lips meet for a brief moment in the midst of the chaotic lightning and rumbling thunder.

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The rain drove everyone away until the only people left outside were Brooke and Vanessa. Sitting on a chair(read:Brooke’s lap) they share a bottle of tequila, trading alternating gulps through lustful gazes and a little dry humping.

Brooke finally seems to give up on their game of chicken because she starts moving closer to Vanessa’s face.

Almost hovering, Vanessa can see in her eyes that she is studying her waiting for her next move. So Vanessa cups her neck and they continue to kiss and eventually explore each other once they get inside of Brooke’s hotel room.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Vanessa wakes up to a paint-chipped but bright room with the sheets from the bed wrapped around her entire body.

It takes her less than a second to register that there is no one next to her, and the disappoint she feels is surprising given the fact that she is usually the one leaving before the sun comes up.

Before she can overthink anymore the door, to the now identified room of Brooke, starts to unlock and open. She sees Brooke’s blonde head pop out from behind the door and she can’t help but don a goofy but relieved smile at not being abandoned in the wee hours of the morning with no trace.

“Hiya stranger.” Vanessa says with a still sleep ridden voice as Brooke fully walks into the room holding mugs and the newspaper.

“Hiya back” Brooke replies as she walks closer to the bed until she is standing right over Vanessa to reveal her bounty. “I guess room service fled, but I did what I could.” 

Vanessa can’t keep the smile off her face as she takes a sip of the coffee Brooke prepared just for her.

“Mmm, that’s good.” She can’t help but exclaim in moans to show her appreciation. Making Brooke’s cheeks color slightly redder than normal makes her heart warm just a little(read:a lot).

“Well I only had to milk a goat to get it for you.” smiles Brooke as she looks a Vanessa from her place in front of the open window in the room.

As Vanessa reaches for the newspaper, a distant explosion causes a flower to reveal itself from in between the pages.

Still making eye contact Vanessa takes the flower and puts it behind her ear before walking towards Brooke who is still motionless by the window.

Despite her body not moving away or towards Vanessa her eyes are moving enough for her.

Diving through the opaque curtains once she is close enough, Vanessa tried to hug(read:tackle) Brooke but instead of falling into her newfound lovers arms, she trips and ends up wrapped into the curtains with her small body hangin in the air with no way to escape.

While Brooke admittedly adorably giggles at her failure, Vanessa can’t help but laugh along with her because of the absurd situation she got herself into.

As Brooke helps Vanessa untie herself their laughter dies down as they each take more than a few glances at the others lips.

With no preamble they began to again kiss as if they were dying of thirst and the other was a cold glass of water. In her haste to pick Vanessa up, Brooke throws her own mug to the floor.

As it shatters sirens start to sound and once they reach a crescendo, so do Vanessa’s moans that quickly drown out the sound of the siren from Brooke’s ears.

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	3. Chapter 3

The cramped street is filled with vendors and people trying to aggressively sell passing people goods.

An impromptu fair was set up and Brooke followed Vanessa as they weaved their way through the throngs of people.

“Step right up. Ladies and gentlemen, try your luck!” A man yells in front of a shooting game, this gains Vanessa’s attention and she walks towards him and Brooke follows. “How about you, little lady? Wanna try your luck? Win a prize?”

“Yeah, all right.” Brooke says through the cup of beer she balanced in between her teeth, while pulling out money. “Two.”

“We got two over here!”

Vanessa picked up the gun and awkwardly held it as she looked down the fake sight. Brooke adjusted her arms and leaned against the counter while staring. 

“You know how to hold it?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Brooke fondly says while Vanessa loosely holds the rifle in her small hands. “You have to aim it.”

“I am.” Vanessa exasperatedly exclaims while Brooke leans into her more. “If you laugh, I will kill your ass.”

The man counts her off and she misses every single shot but one. The smug smile on Brooke’s face is hard to miss as she turns her head. Despite it being intentional, Vanessa still feels embarrassed.

“Do we still get something?” Brooke says while the gun is handed to her and she puts it on her shoulder, like an extension of herself. 

She instantly focuses and hits the clowns as they pop up, the only one she misses is the last one as Vanessa stares at her in shock.

“Beginners luck.” Brooke shrugs in response to Vanessa open mouthed expression.

“I wanna go again.” Vanessa determinedly says while Brooke slaps more money on the counter.

This time Vanessa doesn’t miss one shot. The unflinching face and no blinking give away to the fact that she had to have shot a gun before.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Brooke says while watching Vanessa slightly struggle to carry the bear, one that rivaled her in height and probably weight.

“Beginners luck, I guess.” Vanessa grins over her shoulder while Brooke catches up to her.

/////////////////////// 

“You’ve only known her for like six weeks.”

“I’m in love she’s smart, sexy-“  
Brooke’s sentence is cut off as she’s lifted from the ground and slammed into the mat. The punches that ensue cause her to stop in between every breath as she explains herself. “She’s uninhibited, spontaneous, so complicated. She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

“I knew Monét for two and a half years before I asked her to marry me.” Nina argues from the ropes of the ring, as Brooke gets the upper hand in the sparring session. “You have to have a foundation of friendship, sister. All the other stuff fades.”

Brooke loses that upper hand and the punches to her head cause her to lose her train of thought and her retort.

//////////////////////

The mountain face that both Vanessa and A’keria were climbing was getting steeper, along with the line of questioning Vanessa was being grilled on made it even harder.

“So you don’t think that this is happening, a lil too fast?”

“You know I don’t just do stuff, especially without thinking about it.”

“What does she even do?”

“She’s in construction. A real big time contractor.”

////////////////

“If a server went down in Wall Street, she’s there. Like Batman or something, all day and all night, but with computers.”

The sentence is punctuated by her partners head slamming into the mat while she tried to catch her breath. Nina’s disapproving face still shaking just past the ropes in the ring.

//////////////

“She’s gone just as much as I am. It’s perfect.”

Vanessa picked up the speed of her climbing to get away from A’keria’s pursed lips and frown at her responses.

////////////////////

“I give the whole thing six months, at least.”

“Nina..... I asked her to marry me.”

Her sparring partner had her in a chokehold, her struggle to breathe gave her an excuse to not look Nina in her incredulous eyes.

“What?!”

“I’m getting married!” Brooke struggles while punches are being rained down on her blocked arms.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Getting married. “ Brooke says through gritted teeth as her block is broken down.

“Can you stop hitting her, she said something crazy.”

“I’m getting married.”

//////////  
5 or 6 years later

The sleepy suburb that they now live in, is just waking up to a school day. A newspaper boy is throwing wrapped papers on people’s dewy, put well kept lawns. 

Brooke is standing in her robe, with a mug of coffee, a permanent fixture these days. The boy throws the paper at her feet and her neighbors opposite her. She picks it up and nods at the greeting he gives her every morning.

Getting into the house she finds Vanessa in their shared bathroom brushing her teeth meticulously. The minute she gets into the view of the mirror, Vanessa finishes.

Running the water, while shedding her robe and setting down her coffee, Vanessa goes into the connected wardrobe.

“Gotta get these filters changed.”

“What you think of Dr. Wexler?”

They are both getting changed into clothes for the day. Vanessa pulling up her pantyhose and Brooke adjusting her button down.

“His questions were kind of wishy-washy.” Brooke looks into the mirror, which in turn means Vanessa. “Not the most insightful, and his office is clear across town. We do have the four o’clock appointment, which means rush hour traffic.”

“Not crazy about that either. So that’s settled then, yeah?”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

Brooke had left to start the car and lock up the house and set her empty coffee somewhere in the house.

They had finished at the same time, as per usual. Their two cars were side by side in the garage that they were talking in.

“Dinners at seven.” Vanessa says, like she doesn’t say it everyday, like she doesn’t believe that Brooke will remember after all these years.

“Yup. I’ll be there. Here.” Brooke responds as Vanessa drives off and she follows. Vanessa to the left and her to the right.

//////////////////

The rain made the afternoon dark and slick. Vanessa looked out the window as they lit up from headlights. 

Brooke made her way into the garage slowly. The glovebox was opened and her wedding ring stared back at her. She put it on her naked finger and scrutinized her appearance. 

There was a bright red stain on the collar of her shirt. She prayed that the rain washed it away, or that Vanessa was so distracted that she didn’t notice.

Trekking from the dry, warm garage to the torrential downpour was a feat, especially because she was running. Making her way to the kitchen she saw Vanessa chopping up dinner.

“Hey babe.”

“Perfect timing.”

“It’s pissing rain, out there. The gardener left the lawnmower out.”

“How was work?”

“It was so-so.” Brooke makes her way to the bar, after shedding her drenched trench coat and outer layers. Out of sight from Vanessa until she follows her into their living room.

“I got new curtains.”

“Did you?” Brooke looks at them and can’t discern the difference that their newness makes.

“Well? What do you think? There was a real fucking struggle over this material.” Vanessa gestures to the ornate curtains that hang in the warm glow of the lights. “This Twinkie of a man, got his little hands on them first. But I won.” She bats her eyes at the end of sentence and looks at Brooke to gauge her reaction.

“Of course you did.” Brooke distractedly replies while putting the finishing touches on her drink.

“They’re kinda green so we’re gonna have to reupholster the sofas and we need a new rug now. What do you think of Persian?”

“Or maybe we could keep the old ones? We wouldn’t have to change anything?”

“We talked about this right? You remember us talking about this?”

“I remember. I remember because we said we would wait.”

“If you don’t like them, I can take them back.” Vanessa said knowing that Brooke wouldn’t back down from the fight, but not caring because this was the most they had talked in a week other than pleasantries.

“Ok. I don’t like them.”

“Well then you’ll get used to them.”

With those words Vanessa stalks away and continues to set the table while Brooke guzzles her drink at her absence.

////////////////

“So part two, here we are again.” The therapists calming voice filters through the room while Brooke stares at him. “Only this time, you came back alone. Why did you come back?”

“I’m not really sure. Let me get this straight, I love my wife. I want her to be happy. I want good things for her. But there are times....” Brooke cuts herself off and makes a choking motion which she hopes the therapist doesn’t take for real.

///////////////

Brooke made her way into the bed after hastily turning off her bedside lamp. The glow from Vanessa’s was a problem if she wanted to her sleep immediately.

“Honey, could you just-“

“Five more minutes.” Vanessa interjects without pausing from her reading.

The light stayed on and Brooke buried her face in the pillow until Vanessa was ready for them both to sleep.

In the darkness of the night, Vanessa searches the bed for Brooke’s arm. Whenever she thought that Brooke was asleep she cuddled into her until the morning, where Brooke pretended she didn’t feel the shuffling and the warmth.

Vanessa never brought it up, so she didn’t either.

///////////////////

“There’s like this huge space between us, and it just keeps on filling up with everything we don’t say to each other.” Vanessa confesses to the therapist, the one she agreed to stop seeing after the first session. “What is that called?”

“Marriage.” The therapist replies while taking notice of the impact his words had on the woman across from him. “What don’t you say to each other?”

//////////////

With the dinner table set and the food done, Brooke and Vanessa were both in the dining room about to eat their dinner.

Vanessa was cutting and portioning out the food as Brooke cradled her drink. Once she was finished with the meat she sat down momentarily.

“Did you do something new?”

“I added peas.”

“Peas.” Brooke said with a fake interested tone, Vanessa saw right through it and stood to serve the green beans, knowing full well Brooke Lynn didn’t like them.

After she sat back down they resumed their quiet eating, the only sounds were scraping plates and clinking silverware.

“Sweetheart, will you pass me the salt?”

“It’s in the middle of the table.”

“Is that in the middle of the table?”

“Yeah, it’s between me and you.”

The stand off continues as they stare and see who will give. Brooke eventually stands to get the salt and pepper, keeping them both on her side.

//////////////

“How honest are you with her?”

“With Brooke Lynn? Pretty honest, I mean......it’s not like I lie to her or anything.” Vanessa shrugs thinking about the one very big lie she would never be able to tell, especially not to her innocent and boring wife. “We just have little secrets.”

///////////////////

After dinner Vanessa knew that she had to take care of a mark. Already knowing that Brooke wouldn’t ask too many questions she covered up her outfit with a dark trench coat to mask her lack of clothing.

A shadow passing behind her alerts Brooke’s presence at the mirror of their bathroom. 

“Jesus! Fuck, you scared my ass.” Vanessa says with genuine shock, she hadn’t even heard Brooke footsteps.

“I’m sorry, honeybun. I was just looking for the.....” Brooke doesn’t finish because she had no reason for being in the room, other than to figure out what Vanessa was doing. “You going out?”

“Yeah, some clown crashed a server in a law firm downtown and ended the whole world, gotta be Wonder Woman and save the day. Vanessa lies as she finishes tying up her hair into a demure bun. “We promised the Johnson’s.” Despite the early hour, she knew how forgetful her blonde wife could be.

“I know.”

“Ok then.” Vanessa leaves with a goodbye, barely acknowledging Brooke’s presence. “I’ll be there, in and out. Just a quickie.” Vanessa smirks, knowing that her wording will have Brooke second guessing her disappearance the whole night.

The minute Vanessa’s car is away from view, Brooke goes to her guns and takes off to her mark.


	4. Chapter 4

“It probably feels like you’re the only ones going through this, the fact is, there are millions of couples going through these same problems.” The therapist urges Brooke as she looks on disbelievingly.

Their situation was different. Different from any of those other couples, namely because of the huge lie she kept from her wife every single time she took off her ring and took a human life. Different in how she could incapacitate a human with her third toe, or how she couldn’t sleep without knowing that there was a gun under her mattress and a knife hidden within her bedside drawer.

/////////////////

The taxi that took her to the dark bar was calming as she drank from a flask, trying to get the alcohol smell infused in her clothes and breath.

Putting on her act she fake drunkenly stumbled through the restricted access part of the bar, until she happened upon the door she knew the mark would eventually be in.

She goes through and acts confused, like she didn’t know this wasn’t the bathroom, the bathroom she passed by thirty seconds ago.

“What the hell!?”

“What is this shite!?”

“Sorry. Where’s the can around here?” Brooke convincingly slurs while hanging onto the door like it’s her only lifeline.

“For Christ sake!”

“Take a- is this poker? Are you guys playing poker?” She comes closer to the table, sensing that she would have to be more aggressive if she was going to integrate herself into the game.

“Private game. Piss off.”

“Could I sit in? You think I cou-“

“What part of ‘piss off’ do you not understand?”

“Guys.” Brooke placates while holding her hands out in front of her as she leaned on the only empty chair at the table. “Whoa, be a little friendly. I have the cash.” she brandishes a wad of cash and she can see the men at the table consider her offer more favorably. “See what I’m saying? Anyone interested? Nah, I’ll clean you out. I understand, it’s fine.”

Brooke pretends to start walking away, the stumble was practiced and hitting her head on that chair was like the climax of a performance. Everyone reflexively jolts in pain as her head audibly hits the floor, before the short blonde locks pop right back.

“Those are some really nice shoes, man.” she still drunkenly stumbles over her words, while still on her hands and knees making sure that her gun is still in place. “There’s an empty chair. I could sit here..”

“That’s Lucky’s chair.”

“Where’s Lucky? I don’t see Lucky.” Brooke makes a big show of looking around the mostly empty room, minus the populated corner of men she found herself facing.

“Lucky’s not back yet.”

“Then I’ll sit here.” before anyone can stop her she sits down and gets comfortable while still maintaining a drunken look and demeanor. “Unless.. I’m too hot for you.”

/////////////////

The game had been heating up steadily as Brooke got everyone more comfortable with her presence, intentionally not winning was easy because she was supposed to be drunk.

“Solid silver.” The cigar holder had been a gift from Vanessa, even though she promised to stop smoking, it was a vice that Vanessa tolerated a few times a year. It was thrown in the pot, she had run out of money, she hoped that the mark came before she was reduced to taking out silver fillings.

“Ooh, so sweet.”

“To dodging bullets. Love, Vanessa.” one of the men read out loud as they all laughed at the inscription written inside of the holder.

“In the pot. Keep it in the pot.” Brooke shoves the holder out of the man’s grip and throws it back into the ever increasing pot.

“Oh, he’s got something, he pulled something outta there.”

“You’re in trouble now.”

“He’s got fourteen different tells. You are a bleeding William Tell.”

The clamoring ceases as a new man walks into the room. Everyone turns to look at him as he stares Brooke down, this was her mark so she got her equipment ready, no one noticing her shift in demeanor.

“What the hell is this!?”

“Sorry Lucky. You’re done, pal. Thanks for the memories.”

“Oh, so you’re Lucky, then?” Brooke turns around in her chair and acts as though she hasn’t studied his face for hours. “No kidding.”

What is it, girl? You looking for a job or something?”

“You are the job.” 

Before anyone can react the three bullets are put in Lucky’s chest. The second her gun is pointed at the other men, the one with the gun originally looks towards its empty spot, it was in her hand. She shoots the men before they can reach for any other hidden weapons and puts her guns in their holsters by her waist.

The noise from the bar should have covered up her work, along with the muzzles. She picked through the cards to see what the outcome would have been after picking up the cigar holder.

“Pair of threes.” Brooke shakes her head and picks up her coat and scarf with one hand while stepping over the body and through the door, she needed to make it home before Vanessa did.

///////////////////

Vanessa also took a cab to her job. The swanky hotel she walked into was just what she expected from the mark. Making her way up to the penthouse, she is escorted by burly guards who give her distrusting gazes and wandering eyes.

Once she makes it to the room, she locks the door behind her and mentally prepares herself. She can hear gargling and spitting, the man who comes out of the bathroom isn’t unattractive, but he’s not attractive enough to have the grin he has once he sees her.

He doesn’t have to say anything, his eyes command her before his mouth does the work for him.

She unties the trench coat and reveals a short leather dress, black gloves and while he’s doing the human equivalent of a body scan, she undoes the hair tie and her hair tumbles out like in some cliche movie.

The whip she had hidden within the dress is brought out and she hits it against her hand while mean mugging him.

“Have you been a bad boy?”

“Ooh, yes. Please punish me.”

Using the whip as a lead, Vanessa tied his hands behind his back and got to work.

“You know what happens to bad boys, right?”

“They get punished. Come on punish me, Mistress.”

She hit him with the whip and dragged it down his back as he started to shake.

“Have you been selling big guns to bad people?”

Before he can answer she breaks his neck from her position behind him. It was quick and painless for her so she positioned him on the bed and got her coat back on.

She walked out the door and advised the guards that he was sleeping. Getting into the elevator was easy, walking out the hotel after hearing shouts of outcry was slightly harder, hailing the taxi waiting at the curb wasn’t.

She had to change before Brooke saw her outfit. The dinner she reminded her wife of, now fresh on her mind now that her job was finished.

//////////////

Vanessa was just walking past the wardrobe when Brooke once again went to the sink, she hadn’t heard her downstairs.

“Hey honey.”

“Hey baby, I didn’t hear you downstairs.”

Vanessa still had her dominatrix outfit on, she slyly got a cardigan out of the closet when Brooke coincidentally wasn’t looking. The fishnets were going to have to be okay.

She put it on before Brooke could ask her any questions about her outfit choice.

“”Yeah, I went to a sports bar. I put some money on the game.”

“How’d you do?”

“I got lucky.” Finally finished with her clothes she caught Brooke Lynn’s sly grin before it could vanish into her mask of indifference.

////////////////

The party with the Johnsons was still going on, Brooke knocked on the door and both of them plastered on their fake smiles.

“Welcome, Neighbors!”

“Hiya, Susan.”

“It’s so good to see you, Brooke Lynn.” Susan goes in for a hug after ushering in the couple. The tight hugs are uncomfortable for Brooke’s taste, but she grins and bears it because she can’t choke the woman out, not without any repercussions at least.

“There you go.” Brooke hands her the flowers she snagged before making her way home.

“Oh, this is wonderful.” Susan exclaims while clutching the flowers to her chest while smelling them. “You’re so thoughtful. How do you handle her Vanessa.” she says while squeezing Brooke’s bicep and smiling in Vanessa’s face. “And what a beautiful dress.”

“Thank you, so is yours.” Vanessa says while pulling it down, she didn’t have enough time to take off the fishnets she wore for the dominatrix outfit.

“Come on, lets see the girls.” Susan takes Vanessa’s hand and guided her to where the other mothers and women of the party were. “Don’t stray too far.”

Brooke was taken to the other side of the party, where the men were.

“You want a Cuban?”

“No, I don’t smoke in front of Vanessa.” Brooke already shaking her head, if she came near Vanessa smelling like smoke it would be hell, especially since it’s not a special occasion.

“Clean body, clean soul, or that’s what Suzy says.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Do you have any vices?” Paul questions while they make their way to the bar he had installed in his dining room. 

“Well, you know.” Brooke vaguely gestures, knowing that the things she did daily was nothing Paul could ever relate to.

Across the room Vanessa watched as Brooke conversed with Paul, the babies and sickly sweet smiles on the women surrounding her were getting to her. She would rather have a quiet dinner with her wife, no matter how boring they both found it, than be sitting here faking it.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Chardonnay. Please.”

Susan goes and gets her drink while the woman sitting adjacent stands her baby up on her lap. The moment would be heartfelt for anyone, the babies smile lighting up in delight at his mother’s faces.

Brooke saddled up to the cluster of men drinking beers. 

“Hey boys. Scotch?”

Greetings and back pats are given all around as she takes a place in the circle.

“How’d you make out last quarter?” Fred takes a big swig with a grimace. “Take a beating?”

“No actually, I keep all my money buried under the shed.” Brooke laughs to herself, the fact that what she said was true going over everyone’s head.

“So, Charles got the promotion.”

“That’s so great. We can finally get that addition on the kit-“ before the woman who was interacting with her baby could finish she was being sprayed. The babies fluids getting on her shirt. “I should just wear a raincoat.”

Vanessa watches on as she looks around for a free set of arms, her eyes land on Vanessa and she gets closer with the baby as Vanessa backs away.

“Could you hold him for a second?”

“No... I ca-“

“Please. For a moment plea-“

“Sure.” Vanessa grasps the baby as he is handed to her, he stares so she does too. The surrounding women coo and encourage her while talking about how great of a mother she would be. And because Vanessa has shitty luck, Brooke walks by while the baby is in her arms.

They share a look, Brooke standing still in a doorway, watching her wife with a cute baby, Vanessa watching her wife hold a glass, with no expression, but what’s new about that.

The moment is broken and whatever spell they were both entranced by is gone. Time goes on and the baby is handed back to his mother while the party continues.

////////////////

Finally getting home after the party is a relief, for both of them. Their fake smiles have been unhinged off their faces and the polite air is extinguished as they shed their clothes.

“I liked your dress tonight.” Brooke admits with her back to her. “It was nice.”

“Thank you.” Vanessa walks away before she can continue and heads to bed.

Brooke sighs into the air and takes off her hidden holsters and vests.


	5. Chapter 5

Brooke made her way into her office building with an arm full of fake blueprints and documents.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hytes.” the aging receptionist Shuga greets while Brooke hands over the papers to a colleague in the front room across from Shuga’s desk. “There’s trouble in Atlanta again.”

“Morning back at you. That’s what I heard.” Brooke pops the wad of gum in her mouth as she watches Shuga purse her lips in annoyance at the sound. “What do you have?”

“I have your boarding pass, taxi receipts-“ Shuga is interrupted by a loud pop and a rush of strawberry flavored air into her space. “Get rid of the gum.”

“Do you have a tissue?” Brooke already knowing that she was going to lose it, so she got her use of it. The gum distracting her from smoking a cigarette, but in turn annoying everyone in her presence. 

A tissue is immediately produced and she spits the gum out and watches as it’s disposed of, just like almost everyday she comes into the office.

“And your hotel bill.”

“Thanks.”

“Now don’t lose those, honey. Keep them in the envelope.” Shuga calls out as Brooke makes her way to her office.

“Is Nina here?” Brooke questions while walking past Nina’s office, after hearing her name her blonde head pops out the door.

“Morning pal.” Nina grins and watches as Brooke unlocks her door and goes inside. “How you doing?”

“Same old, same old. People need killing.”

“Oh, Brooke. Little get together at my house this weekend. Barbecue, no ladies, friends only. It’s going to be awesome.”

“Yeah, well I’ll talk to the missus about it.” Brooke sits down at her desk and misses the incredulous look in Nina’s eyes from her doorway.

“Do you want to use my phone? Maybe I’ll give her a call, in case you need to scratch your ass or use your head later on. Make sure she’s thinks it’s okay.”

“You still live with your mother.” Brooke snaps back, tired of Nina’s sour attitude towards Vanessa ever since they met.

“Why bring her into this?” Nina defends because that’s always the argument Brooke brings up when they have a fight over Brooke’s autonomy. “She’s a first class lady. I don’t have to check in with her when I want to do something. She cooks, she cleans, and she makes me snacks.” she is cut off by the door being slammed while Brooke massages her temples from the stress her best friend knowingly causes her.

She pushes a hidden button on her desk that opens a secret screen and interface on a fake wall. Her chair is launched towards the wall that makes up a high tech desk in the middle.

“Brooke Lynn Hytes.” 

“Morning, Atlanta.”

“Quite the body count this week. We have a priority one, so I’ll need your expertise. The target is Trinity Taylor, aka ‘The Tuck’. She’s a direct threat to the firm.” the somewhat garbled voice informs Brooke as she studies the mugshot blown up on the screen. “DIA custody, they’re making a ground to air trade off to helicopter. It’s ten miles from the Mexican border. I need you to make sure that she never changes hands.” the spiel is cut off and Brooke is left studying the picture and coordinates of her next job, with only one question on her mind.

“The Tuck?” 

/////////////////

Vanessa walked into the skyscraper like she owned it and got into the elevator.

The full body scan and retinal display are the security measures she goes through before the actual doors to her office are revealed.

“Vanessa Mateo confirmed.”

A trusted assistant named Scarlet hands her a red bull in a cup and a stack of documents while they walk down the stairs and towards her desk.

Any work she had planned is interrupted by her boss and the video message she set up.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we have a bit of a situation. You know that the competition would love to see us crash and burn. I need you to handle this personally and quickly.”

“Who’s the target?”

“Trinity Taylor.”

“I’m getting the specifics right now, Vanessa.” Silky says from her almost permanent spot at her massive monitor and cookie jar filled desk.

“We need this quick, clean, and contained.”

“Yes, Miss.”

The video cuts out and Vanessa makes her way closer to Silky so that she can see the marks photo and information.

“The targets name is Trinity Taylor, aka ‘The Tuck’.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s being moved across the border to a federal facility. The only weak spot is just south of the border.” Silky explains while her fingers fly across the keyboard with a speed no one else can match. 

“I want GPS and SAC of the canyon and the weather for the next three days.” Vanessa finishes off her first Red Bull to punctuate her statement and goes to her another while still giving orders somehow.

“The meet will happen at an abandoned airstrip. We only got one chance.”

“Well then that’s more than enough for us.”

///////////////

The hot sun was being felt even though Vanessa was sheltered in a dilapidated shack at the base of a mountain.

All of her equipment was with her and everything was going to plan, as she walked towards her rifle and advanced binoculars to see the targets location.

“Are we green?”

“Perimeter is armed. We are up and running.”

She relaxed because this job would be easy and once she was finished she could think about what she would cook for dinner. 

Motion in the binoculars peripheral cause her to see a maniac on a dirt bike heading towards her armed area of the desert.

“Oh come the fuck on.. are you guys getting this shit?”

“Affirmative. Is this a threat?”

“Countdowns been activated. The convoy isn’t in the zone yet.” 

“Some idiot is on the field.”

“They’ll blow the charges.”

“Ok.” The heat signature picked up that fact that the person on the bike had stopped and was standing by the bike not going anywhere. “Civilian.” The barely noticeable Hawaiian print of the shirt seen through her keen eyes but she wasn’t able to make out the gender of the person fucking up her job.

“Picking up a weapon signature.”

“Shit!” the person had pulled out a huge missile launcher and was pointing it directly at the convoy, one that was getting closer and closer. Vanessa quickly looked through her rifles sight and shot at the persons chest. They went down and Vanessa felt that she could slightly relax because they didn’t get back up.

Her bombs that she had planted before went off without a hitch but at the wrong time, just like that the target was lost and she hoped that whoever she shot got caught in the crossfire of the explosions.

Another warning was given as she saw the person from before stand up and aim the launcher right at the shack she was in. She had barely jumped from it before is was blown to pieces and the explosion caused her ears to ring. 

//////////////

Brooke watched on as the hideout of the asshole who shot her was blown up. It showed them for shooting her in the chest and for making her swallow her gum. Her chest was thankful to the bullet proof-vest she wore because the accurate shot would have got her heart. 

In the rubble of the shed she found a smoky computer and all the makings of a professional sniper set up. She would have to bring it to Yvie, the one person who could probably pull anything useful off of it.

////////////////

Brooke found herself sat in a diner with Nina on her right side. 

The meal was briefly forgotten as Nina attempted to chat up the waitress with some success, like she did every time they came to the diner.

“I think I got ID’d on that hit. Have you ever been ID’d on a hit?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Right, Well then I’m in trouble.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Little thing. Maybe a buck five, buck ten tops.”

“Maybe he has dwarfism?”

“I’m not even sure that it was a him.”

“Are you telling me, to my face, that you got your ass handed to you by a girl?”

“I think so. A pro.” Brooke says with some pride, there weren’t many other women in the business. Despite the attempt to kill her she was happy that she wasn’t the only female spy.

“Well, it can’t be difficult to find this woman. How many female hitters are there, besides you?”

“Do you want any dessert?” The waitress saddled up to where they were seated before Brooke could fully contemplate Nina’s question.

“What do you have, sweetie?” Nina tries to say with a flirty smile on her face.

“Ice cream.”

“Isn’t that delicious. What flavors?”

“Chocolate and vanilla.”

“I don’t like those, but mixed together wouldn’t that be nice. You know what I mean?” Nina rhetorically asks as Brooke watches on with disgust as her best fiends horrible flirting is reciprocated. “Not just the little pink spoon. I like the whole sundae.”

“That could be arranged.” the waitress swirls some hair in her finger while staring into Nina’s eyes.

“Perfect.” She leaves to apparently make Nina a sundae.

“‘Could be arranged’ I would let her kick my ass, know what I mean?” Nina turns back to Brooke expecting an understanding smile while Brooke still looks contemplative and disgusted. “What other details do you have besides how much she weighs?”

“Laptop.”

“Laptop? Okay, then we’ll get someone on it immediately.”

////////////////

“I want to know who that bitch is. Get me that fucking tape.” Vanessa growls as she crosses her arms in stress at not fulfilling her duty, and at being bested by some unknown person.

“Vanessa.”

“Get me that tape.” a tap on her shoulder startled her out of the violent thoughts running through her head as she thinks about the recent events. “What?”

“Mother is on the line.”

“The FBI secured the package and the window is closed, Miss.”

“I told you that we couldn’t afford or accept any mistakes.”

“There was another player.”

“We do not leave witnesses. If someone ID’d you then you have 48 hours to take care of them, Vanessa.”

“Looking forward to it, Miss.”

The line clicks and Vanessa releases a breath of frustration through a harsh exhale. 

“All right, we got a new target then.” Vanessa leans against the desk and watches on as everyone gets to work on the footage captured before the explosion happened. “Let’s finds out who they are.”

//////////////

“Jesus fuck, what did you do to it?” Yvie exclaims while picking up the scraps of what used to be a laptop before looking at Brooke’s expectant but hopeful face. “Put a campfire out on it?” Yvie stops picking it up once a piece that looks like the keyboard clatters noisily on her work table. “Get a new one.”

“This one has sentimental value for its owner.”

“And who is that?”

“Well, Yvie I was hoping you could tell me that.”

“Why do you have to know so bad, anyway? It’s not like it’s yours.”

“You know me, just trying to return some lost property.”

A passing man with a hard hat on is walking past the dark room while looking in. 

“Hey Phil.”

“Hiya Brooke.” Brooke waves and get back to observing Yvie attempt to gain any inkling as to who shot her.

“You a vegan?”

“No. My girlfriend is.” Yvie distractedly says while picking up chips and studying things that Brooke will never understand, until she jumps up in victory while typing away at her computer. “Upgraded RAM module. The chip is Chinese. Imported by Dynamix. Retailed by......I might be able to actually get you a billing address.”

“Alright? There’s no name, just an address.” Yvie displays the address that comes up and watches as Brooke’s face turns into one of horror. “Do you know the place?”

//////////////

Brooke slowly made her way into Vanessa’s work building in denial of what she already knew to be true. 

The directory displayed every office in the building and it’s floor number, along with the separate address. And sure enough when she followed her finger to the address Yvie showed her, it brought her to her wife’s name as CEO.

“Holy motherfucking shit.” Brooke whispers before biting her own fist to prevent herself from screaming her head off in an emotion she couldn’t even identify.

//////////////

“Go make yourself some coffee.” Vanessa dismisses both of the women who have been combing the footage of the unknown assailant.

The video was memorized and seared into her brain but she watched it one more time, just to see if she could capture anything new.

She zoomed in when she saw something weird, or only weird to her. The person, in the stupid Hawaiian shirt was seemingly flexing their leg. Not just any muscle spasm or jerk, it was a practiced and unconscious move, almost like a semi-pirouette without the arms or legs moving out of place.

While the leg was moving so was the mouth of this person. There were obnoxious bubbles being popped while they made their way to the dirt bike. All of these details, the little quirks were synonymous with one person.

“Vanessa, it’s your wife.”


	6. Chapter 6

The dawning realization of just who bombed her makes Vanessa shake her head in anger. Angry at herself for falling for a ruse, angry at Brooke for lying to her and not being who she said she was.

“She’s back from Atlanta, and wants to know when dinner will be.”

“Tell her.... dinners at seven.”

Vanessa can faintly hear the ensuing conversation but all she can focus on is the memories of the last six years of her life. Every smile, laugh, and experience could have been a lie, some game being played on her.

What the hell was she going to do?

////////////

“Hi, Brooke.” Brooke can hear Scarlet’s permanently smug voice filter through the phone while she tries to contain herself at the lobby of her wife’s office building. “She says dinners at seven.”

“Always is.” Brooke sarcastically smiles despite no one of note being able to see it. 

How was she going to face Vanessa, especially knowing what she now knew? How was Vanessa going to react, there was no way that she didn’t know by now.

//////////////////

Brooke cautiously made her way up the driveway and into the garage. There were lights on and it was supposed to be like any other day. The only difference was the fact that her wife attempted to kill her and she did as well.

She slowly walked towards the door not expecting to see Vanessa finishing up the food with a pleasant smile on her face.

“This is a nice surprise.”

“I hoped so.” Vanessa smiles while Brooke takes notice of the Draino on the counter. “You’re home early.”

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, honey.” 

“Shall we?” Brooke indicates to the dining room after Vanessa sets down all the dishes. There was no way she was giving her back to her.

“Yes.”

The wine was already set out and every dish looked picture perfect.

“Thought the wine was for special occasions.”

“This is a special occasion.”

“Pot roast. My favorite.”

“Allow me, sweetheart.”Brooke prevents Vanessa from cutting up the pot roast with an unnecessarily huge knife. It was like a machete and in response Vanessa moved to the other side of the table to cut up the other vegetables with another obscenely large knife. The action would have seemed normal and even innocent if Vanessa wasn’t looking at her like a stranger. “Been on your feet all day, least I could do.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure.” Brooke couldn’t make it through the whole dinner without at least knowing a sliver of what Vanessa thought she knew. “So how was work?”

“Actually we had some trouble with a commission.”

“Is that so?” Brooke feigns an interested look while she sits down after doling out the pot roast portions. Vanessa was still standing over her with the knife. “Yeah, double booking with another firm. Green beans?” Vanessa asks her after pointed eye contact that makes Brooke want to wither.

“No, thank you.”

“You’ll have some anyway.” Vanessa dumps them on her plate, once again knowing that she doesn’t like them.

“Well I hope everything worked out okay.”

“It hasn’t but it will.” Vanessa smirks while looking at Brooke’s plate of food.

“Pot roast is my favorite.” Brooke takes a big bite of the roast and chews for a while, watching Vanessa as she continues to smirk at her. The Draino in the reflection of the mirror from the kitchen makes her hesitate to swallow, but if anyone was killing anybody tonight, it was Brooke. “Did you try something new? Could you pass me the salt?”

Brooke chuckles at the salt and pepper shakers on her side of the table, Vanessa’s still held knife pointing towards them with a smug smile.

“How was Atlanta?”

“We actually had a few problems ourselves. Some figures didn’t add up.”

“Big deal?”

“Life or death. Wine?”

She stands up and takes the wine from its chiller and walks towards Vanessa’s side. She continues to fill the glass until it was full. The eye contact they sustained was heavy and questioning, full of narrowed eyes and for once distrusting gazes.

To test her Brooke drops the bottle. Almost as if in slow motion, Vanessa reaches out and catches it before it can spill on the white carpet. The tension was palpable as Vanessa confirms what Brooke hoped to deny until the day she died, Vanessa was the other woman from the desert.

Vanessa drops the bottle, but it’s too late.

“I’ll get a towel.” she abruptly gets out of her seat and heads to the kitchen while Brooke runs to her study for a weapon.

Once the gun was in her hand she cautiously went through the house, it was completely quiet despite Vanessa saying that she was getting a towel to clean up. Squealing tires are heard and Brooke bolts to the door to see Vanessa swerving out into the road, away from her, where she is clearly brandishing a gun.

“Vanessa! Vanessa!”

Brooke runs towards the car as Vanessa speeds off and into the neighborhood. 

“How could I be so fucking stupid?” Vanessa questions out loud through tears as Brooke’s stupid face is imprinted in her brain.

Brooke runs for her life as she cuts through trees and backyards to catch up to Vanessa’s car. After far too much running she sees the car just up the road, in climbing the fence while calling Vanessa’s name she accidentally fires a bullet into the windshield.

The car is slammed into a break and Vanessa irately stares at the narrowly missed bullet hole and Brooke’s gun.

“Oh, dear god. Wait. No, no it was an accident. Honey? Accident.”

Brooke hastily gets out of the awkward climbing position she was stuck on and makes her way to the car cautiously because Vanessa’s face had changed from irate to determined, determined to do what, that she didn’t know.

Vanessa revved the engine and prepared to barrel through Brooke’s body, knowing that she would regret it, she drove ahead anyway.

“Vanessa, stop the car, right fucking now.” 

Brooke barely manages to hop onto the car before Vanessa can break her legs over an misunderstanding. The high speed almost made her fall far too many times in her opinion. She’s finally able to get onto a comfortable position over the sunroof.

“Vanessa? You’re overreacting. Let’s not get carried away, okay? We don’t want to go to sleep angry.” Vanessa swerves and she still narrowly managed to get a foothold to stay on top of the sedan.

She kicks out the back seat door and jumps in, before Vanessa can make anymore rash decisions.

“We can talk this out.”

“God!” Vanessa was going straight for a closed off construction road, the clear sign indicators of ‘Do Not Go Near’ clearly written but she just speeds up.

“Pull over! Pull over! Pull over!” 

Before she can make it to the site, Vanessa jumps out the car leaving Brooke in the back seat, hurdling towards an unfinished road.

The ensuing crash is ignored by Vanessa as she limps away, to where she doesn’t know, but anywhere far from Brooke would do.

///////////////

“Okay, I’m coming. Who is it?” Nina asks as she stands in an oversized T-shirt trying to peer through the lacy curtains, the darkness didn’t afford her a view of whoever was banging on her mother’s door.

“Open up.” Brooke mutters just loud enough for Nina to hear. Her wounds from crashing in a car without a seatbelt were aching and she just wanted to sit down.

Nina opens the door and her shocked face does nothing to change Brooke’s mood. “What the hell happened to you?”

“My wife.” Brooke walks through the door that was widened for her tall body to enter. They made their way to the living room, and Brooke crashed onto the sofa. “She tried to kill me.”

“Yes and? Monet tried to kill me, not with a car. At least Vanessa was a man about it. But they all try to kill you. Slowly, but just as painful, cripplingly so. And then, wham! They hurt you.” Nina rants while Brooke stares off into space, Vanessa’s betrayed face and drying tear tracks on a constant loop in her brain. “You know how hurt I used to be? I used to beat myself up about it. Now I’m great, I get dates all the time. In fact, I just woke up from a thing, I’m in a robe.”

“You live with your mom.”

“I choose to though. She’s the only woman I’ve ever trusted.”

“It’s unbelievable.” Brooke runs her hands over her face and groans.

“Look, I know exactly what you’re thinking. If she lied about that, what else has she lied about? I mean her job as a spy, someone to get information from people. French Riviera. A yacht. An Iranian prince. She’s supposed to gain his trust. It’s disgusting.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

///////////////

Vanessa winces as the shot burned its way down her throat. The tears had dried up, they left behind a broken woman as A’keria comforted her in her dark and empty office floor.

“What? Your wife was the shooter?”

Yea-“ She hiccuped and continues to drink with a forced straight face. Her conversation with A’keria before she got married popping into her head, she really didn’t know Brooke after all. 

/////////////

“This was probably planned from the beginning. Operation Stakeout Brooke Lynn. A six year stakeout to get information out of you. Mission accomplished.”

/////////////////

“Okay. The upside is, you don’t love her.” A’keria has Vanessa by the shoulders, one of her famous pep talks would usually have Vanessa ready to tackle anything, this time not so much. 

“No.” Vanessa lies through her teeth.

“You’ll kill her, and you know nobody is as good as you are at that.”

“Thanks.” Vanessa wryly chuckles as she throws down another shot.

“And then it’ll all be over.”

//////////////

“Look, I know you’re embarrassed, but it’s me, Nina, you’re talking to. The people we work with, they don’t even know. I know I’m not gonna tell them anything. Now the people she works with are probably having a very big laugh at this, but that is not important. Look, in the first 150 pages, Brooke has been the clown, you can write the last 10 pages. You’ve been smoked, but you can write the last 10.”

“Thanks for this. Great talk really. We should do it more often.” Brooke stands and if she’s a little wobbly, Nina doesn’t mention it. “I’m gonna borrow this.” She picks up a shotgun, casually sitting around the house.

“I like where your head is at.”

The dizziness kicked in the minute she stood up, with the added weight of a loaded shotgun she almost passed out. “I’ll do it in the morning.”

///////////

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Vanessa tried to get comfortable on the sleek leather couch that she regrets saying was comfortable in the first place.

“Okay. Good night.” A’keria walks up the chairs and out the door while sneaking glances at the fragile woman. 

“Night.”

Vanessa turns on her side and tears once again well up in her brown eyes. 

“You don’t love her.” is whispered into the night as she tries to get some sleep, knowing what she has to do the next day.

/////////

“Night Brooke.”

“Night Nina.”

“Good night Mom!”

Brooke turned on her side and she attempted to get slightly comfortable on the couch, a small blanket given, one that didn’t even touch her knees.

/////////////////

“Alright girls, lets go.”

Vanessa slowly opened her front door, the hangover she was experiencing only slightly helped by her sunglasses and hot coffee, she knew that Brooke wouldn’t be there but it was never wrong to be cautious.

“Pocket litter, receipts, matchbooks. You all know the drill.”

Everyone went to pick apart her life. They were cutting up the couch and examining every little trinket in every single room. It hurt but it was necessary, she made her way up the stairs, just in time to see Scarlet rip open the bear she won on their first official date.

There seemed to be nothing in it but fluff so Vanessa steered herself to the bedroom where a group of women were huddled in front of her tv.

“What the fuck is this?”

“It looks like your wedding.”

The shaky camera work did show their wedding day, everyone’s smile was bright and the love in both of their eyes made her feel sick.

“I know what it is. What are you doing?”

“Research on the target.”

“The room is wrapped. Thank you very much.” Vanessa pointed to the door and after they left she closed the door with a sigh. 

“-to have and to hold, to love and to cherish til death do us part. I promise.”

“I, Brooke, take you, Vanessa, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and h-“ she cuts it off before she can hear the beautiful vows Brooke wrote for her.

There was nothing in the room that she had the heart to look at so she left and picked up a trash bag on her way, just to look busy, she really just wanted to be alone with some fresh air. 

“What’s going on, Mrs. Hytes-Mateo?”

“Garden party, girls.” the bag was dumped in trash can and she left the little neighborhood girls on her front lawn looking through the hedges.

/////////////////

“Howdy, neighbor.” 

Brooke strategically crouched herself behind the shorter man as he unlocked her front door. She couldn’t be sure that Vanessa wasn’t already there, just waiting for her to slip up.

“Wow. I cannot believe I’ve never been in here before. This is great.”

“Start with the living room.” Brooke relaxed enough to check the living room in one quick swoop and then she leaned around the kitchen corner to peak. Her neighbor oblivious to her tense aura as he looked around in awe.

“Ok yeah. I love these floors. What are they? Teak?”

“Red oak. They’re red oak.” Brooke finally made her way into the kitchen, there was nothing out of place but everything looked touched or moved in a different position.

“And you won the Dodgeball Masters trophy this year. Again.” he says with a fond shake of his head while looking at the plaque on the wall by her office. 

“Again. That’ll be on your mantel next year. I guarantee it.” 

It was clear that no one was waiting for her so she dismissed him with a bullshit excuse. There was only one place that could have been truly touched, her shed.

She made her way over to it and the tarp that usually covered the ground was moved. She moved the handle and once she climbed down the ladder and turned on the lights, there was nothing.

Every shelf and gun holder was empty, the stack of money she had was gone and there wasn’t even a note left.

“Bitch.”

//////////////////////

“Targets profile is our main priority. Use all means, phone taps, credit cards, even civilian frequencies.”

“With what, Vanessa?”

Vanessa pressed the answer machine that was taken from her home, even though it seemed like an old fashioned thing to use, Brooke liked vintage shit so she got it for her.

“You’ve reaches the Hytes-Mateo’s. We can’t take your call, but leave a message after the beep and we’ll get right back to you.” their joined voices were bright and happy as they recited the practiced line.

“And search the database.”

“For who? Brooke Lynn Hytes?”

“Find her.” Vanessa growls back to Scarlet even though she knew logically that they wouldn’t find anything useful.

“Vanessa?”

“What?”

“I think I found her.”

“Where?”

“Here.” Silky points to a red blip climbing towards their floor. “Heat sensor breach in the perimeter.”

“Scan all the fucking floors.”

The office phone rang and Vanessa knew that it was Brooke, so she gestured to Scarlet and the other woman answered the phone and put it on speaker.

“I thought I told you not to bother me at the office, sweetie.”

“Well, you are still technically a Hytes, excluding the hyphen.”

“Well, we all got flaws, don’t we?”

“Careful. I can push a button any time, anywhere.”

“Bitch, you couldn’t find the button with two hands and a fucking map.” Vanessa lies once again through her teeth, their sex life was never an issue, when she allowed Brooke to touch her she was more than satisfied but the huff that was expelled on the other phone line gave her a sense of accomplishment. 

“Last warning, you need to disappear.”

“No.”

“Now.”

“D-sector is clear.”

“You expect me to just roll over and play dead?”

“Should be used to it after five years.” Brooke mutters quietly through the phone and Vanessa pretends to not be hurt while her colleagues watch her verbal volley.

“Six. And I’m not leaving.”

“E-sector clear.”

“Anywhere. Anytime.”

“Intruder detected.” 

The heat signature had pinpointed Brooke’s slow moving location towards her floor. The women immediately spring into action and start shredding and burning documents and Vanessa walked over to her computer and destroyed all her files and memory. All evidence of their work had mostly been erased so they all prepared themselves on the zip lines that were attached to the ceiling for just that purpose.

Vanessa was the last to jump out the window, she waited until Brooke had kicked out a vent just to only find her. She smirked as Brooke quickly pulled out her gun, she kicked off and made her way to the opposite building where her peers were. 

When she turned back Brooke stood looking out a shattered window, her gun was almost forgotten in her hand as she watched all the women act like jumping out a building isn’t unusual.

“Chickenshit!” Brooke yells because Vanessa didn’t even have the decency to leave anything useful, the scattered papers and shredders were clear indicators.

“Pussy!” Vanessa yells back with her hands cupped over her mouth, not that she needed any help in the volume department.

////////////////

“Are you telling me that you had a shot at her and you didn’t even take it?” Nina questions while using her shotgun to move aside a lacy curtain, not being able to see anything in the darkness she continues pacing while Brooke carefully extracts remnants from a furnace. “We have all this stuff here, and you couldn’t take her out?” Nina gestures to the small arsenal she had assembled after Brooke had come back with her arms full of evidence and not her wife’s body. “Well, now she’s a problem for both of us. Now my house is priority one.”

“Would you just help me?” Brooke says while holding a piece of burnt paper in the light.

“You’re driving me crazy with the tongs and the furnace. You’re like an insane woman. They gave you 48 hours, right? So what do we have left? 22? 23?”

“18 and some change.” Brooke calmly answers while Nina silently freaks out because she doesn’t want to wake her mother.

“18 hours until they close the book on you!?” Nina yells not caring about the sleeping occupant in the house.

“Nina?” Nina whips around and points her gun to the voice that called out to her.

“Mom! We’re on high alert right now! I almost killed you right then. You don’t even know! Never mind. I am so done with playing games with her. You have to take her head-on.”

“Don’t tell me how to handle my wife.”

“She’s not your wife anymore, she the enemy.” Nina looks out the window again while Brooke sighs and leans back on the uncomfortable couch. “She could be outside now!”

“Nina.”

“Alright.” Nina slumps back and watches on as Brooke gets a smug smile while looking down at a charred piece of paper, it had an address.

//////////////

Brooke walked through the construction workers and foremen with a hard hat and documents under her arm. The building was the address that she knew Vanessa would be in, so she made her way to the service elevator and pressed the button. 

It jolted and stalled. She had been found out. 

“This is security. There’s a problem with your elevator, Miss. Do you want an engineer to come and assist you?”

“No. Take your time, I’m really comfortable.”

“Are you really comfortable?” Vanessa’s voice boomed through the elevator speakers as she watched Brooke cross her arms and legs while leaning against the steel wall.

“Vanessa? Is that you sweetheart?”

“First and last warning, Brooke. You get out of town.”

“You know I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re saying all that now. But right now, you’re ass is sitting in a steel box hanging 70 floors up over nothing but air.”

“So this is a trap?”

“She’s in car three.” Silky quietly offers from her place in the disguised van full of equipment. She knew that Brooke would eventually find her so she hadn’t even personally stepped into the building. 

“It’s never going to work, honey. It’s never going to work because you are always underestimating and undermining me.”

“Do I?” Vanessa sarcastically offers while Brooke looks into the camera in the corner of the elevator.

“You have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Well then, back at ya, baby.”

“Let me guess....shapes charge on the counter balance cable, two on the primary and secondary brakes? Maybe?”

“She found them.” Scarlet worried says while Brooke smugly looks into the camera.

“Thank you for that.” Vanessa throws at Scarlet while Silky checks on their other means of termination.

“Did you also get the base charge on the principal charge?” Vanessa watches as Brooke’s face changes from smug to thoughtful. “Promise to leave town or I’ll blow it.”

“Alright, I give up.” Brooke stops watching the camera and sits down on the abandoned bucket in the elevator. “Blow it.”

“What!?”

“Go on, blow it.”

“You really think I won’t?”

“I honestly think you won’t.”

“Okay. Five....... four..... any last words?”

“Those new curtains were fucking ugly.”

“Goodbye, Brooke.” 

The feed is cut off and static is seen as Scarlet lets go of the button she just pressed. Everyone watches each other as a loud explosion is heard outside the doors.

“What the fuck was that!?”

“What? You said goodbye.”

Vanessa threw off her headset and ran out the van just to see dust and destruction.


	7. Chapter 7

Brooke sighed while she got up and removed her own device over the elevator camera. The actual elevator she was in wasn’t even two feet off the ground, but Vanessa didn’t know that. 

She actually had the nerve to try to kill her, knowingly at that. 

///////////////

Vanessa cradled the glass of alcohol in her hand loosely while a single tear trailed down her cheek. She was the very picture of grief, she couldn’t believe that Brooke was actually dead.

“Madame.” A presence at her back and a familiar voice make her thoughts stop. A warm but calloused hand caressed hers while filling up her glass. “I thought of way too many lines for this moment. ‘Thought I’d just drop in’ ‘Hey, doll, thanks for giving me the shaft.’” Brooke revealed herself and entered Vanessa’s eyesight.

“What did you decide?”

“I want a divorce.” Brooke smiles while her green eyes remain the coldest Vanessa has ever seen them.

“I like it. You proposed to me here, so it’s real sporting that it would end here too.”

“Coat, Miss.” 

“May I sit?” 

“No.”

Brooke handed over her coat and sat down, not before grabbing her gun and putting it on her lap, trained directly at Vanessa.

“Champagne?”

“No. Champagne is for celebrating. I’ll have a martini.”

The waiter looked towards Vanessa expectantly while she tried to outwardly get over the fact that Brooke was alive and mostly well. “I’m fine, thank you.” When he left she leaned on the table and steeled herself for the ensuing conversation. “So what do you want, Brooke Lynn?”

“We have an extraordinary situation, Vanessa. You clearly want me dead and I’m getting less and less worried about your well-being as the hours go by.”

“So what do we do?”

“Do we shoot it out? Hope for the best?”

“That would be a real shame, especially when they’d ask me to leave once you’re dead.”

“Dance with me.”

“You don’t dance. Not anymore at least.” Vanessa scoffs as Brooke holds her hand out.

“That was just a part of my cover, sweetheart.”

Vanessa accepts the hand offered and reluctantly relishes the warm and comforting contact as Brooke leads her to the dance floor. They get closer and Vanessa can’t help but go back to their first night together.

“Was being a sloth a part of it too?”

“Do you think that this will have a happy ending?”

“Happy endings are just stories that haven’t ended yet.” Vanessa subtly searches Brooke’s person to the tempo of the music, when she finds a gun in her sock she slides it across the floor and stands with the help of Brooke’s arms.

“Satisfied.”

“Not for years.”

Brooke shakes her head while Vanessa smirks, to the music she searches Vanessa less than conspicuously, the knife hidden within her garter is thrown over her shoulder while she caresses the soft skin.

“Why do you think we failed? Was it because we were leading double lives? Or was it all the lying that killed us? I have a theory, it’s actually newly formed.”

“I’m dying of anticipation.”

“You killed us.”

“That’s a hot take.”

“You approached our marriage like a job, something to be planned and executed.”

“And you avoided it.”

“Why do you even care, if I was just a cover?”

“Well, who the fuck said you were a cover?”

“Wasn’t I?”

“Wasn’t I?”

Brooke had pulled them both closer progressively as the conversation had went on, they were staring at each other trying to discern what the other was thinking with no success.

“I gotta.... excuse me.”

Vanessa quickly ran up the stairs of the hotel restaurant.

“There are no exits up there, Vanessa.” Brooke called out while looking at the people milling about, while she stood in the middle of the dance floor. “Be cool. She’s a liar.”

An explosion with smoke caused the alarm to sound, in the chaos of people pushing to get out and away from the fire she lost Vanessa. She couldn’t see the short woman through the throngs of people, until there was almost forty people between them, Vanessa turned back with a smirk and air kiss.

She tried to hurry the people surrounding her along, but they all walked towards the entrance at their own pace. When she finally got outside before she could search for long a tug on her jacket caught her attention.

“Do you know that you’re ticking?”

Brooke looked around her self and sure enough her jacket pocket was ticking, she scrambled to remove it and contain the aftermath, so she stuffed it into a blue mailbox while the ticking grew more frantic. “Get back!”

As people heeded her warning a boom was heard as the mailbox moved from its position slightly while people looked on. A man waiting outside a limo was staring so she started towards him.

“Limo, Ma’am?”

//////////////////

Vanessa drove down the dark road with both hands on the wheel, she hoped that Brooke was smart enough to take the jacket off, while also being hopeful that the small bomb killed her so that she didn’t have to do it in close quarters. 

The phone rang through the Bluetooth set up on her car and she accepted it, already knowing that it was Brooke.

“Vanessa Mateo.”

“That’s the second time you’ve tried to kill me. Today!”

“It was just a little bomb.”

“I’m going home and I’m going to burn everything I ever bought you.”

“I’ll race you there, baby.”

One of them hung up the phone and Vanessa pushed the gas harder.

Her phone rang again, without even looking at the caller ID, she knew that it was Brooke, once again.

“You there yet?”

“First time we met, what was your first thought?”

“You first.”

“I thought.... I thought that you were Christmas morning. I don’t really know any other way to describe it.”

“And why are you telling me all this now?”

“I guess in the end you start to think of the beginning. So there it is, all cards on the table. I thought that you should know. So how about it then, hm?”

“I thought...” Vanessa leaned her head back and repeated the mantra that had been going through her head since this mess had started. She didn’t love her, so why was this so hard to hear. “I thought that you were the most beautiful mark I’d ever seen in my fucking life.” Vanessa grits her teeth and cringes, the silence is deafening and she knows that Brooke was hurt.

“So it was all business, yeah?” Brooke quietly murmurs as her voice breaks slightly towards the end.

“All business. From the get go. Cold and hard math.” 

“Thank you. That’s what I needed to know.”

“Okay.”

Brooke is the one who hangs up. Vanessa bangs her head against the headrest and exhales a frustrated breath, her foot on the gas gets heavier and she swerves the car to get home faster.

////////////////

Brooke is just about to enter the driveway when headlights heading straight towards her get closer. Vanessa slams into the side of her car, then she backs up and clips her front bumper while driving further into their property.

Brooke curses and bangs on her steering wheel while backing up and just barely getting past the sidewalk before the car stalls. She hurried to get her seatbelt off and ran to the front door, that was of course locked. She tried to jimmy the lock with no luck while her neighbor walked up from behind her with his dog.

“Hey Brooke.”

“Hey Paul.” Brooke looks through the dark windows and keeps her back to him.

“Are you all right?”

“Yep.” Brooke stills tries to force open the door.

“Um, by the way, just in case you didn’t know, your car is hanging out into the sidewalk a little.”

“Yeah, thanks Paul.”

“Alright then. Have a good night.”

“Good night.”

Brooke ran over to the side of the house and climbed up to the roof. When she found the window to her study she shattered the window, hoping against hope that Vanessa was downstairs.

When she crawled through the window the glass shards made their way into her hair while she tiptoed across the room. A button was pushed on the side of a fake map, it revealed a cigar box. Brooke ripped it open and a gun with a silencer was packed away in foam. She assembled the gun and took a clip disguised as a matchbook.

She made her way downstairs from a side stair as Vanessa went up. As she walked through the dark hallways there was no sound, before she traversed through the foyer she leaned against the corner. Using a mirror she looked over and the minute their eyes met Vanessa shot at the wall. Brooke immediately ducked down as rounds of shotgun shells were shot at the same place her head was at less than seconds ago.

“You still alive, baby?”

Brooke faked groans and moans of pain while clanking her gun on the floor. Just when Vanessa was going to lower her gun, she shot at her which caused Vanessa to jump out the way.

Once the gunfire had stopped Vanessa stealthily ran down the stairs, while Brooke went down a different hallway. She was confident that Vanessa wasn’t near so in being oblivious she accidentally brushed up against a sugar bowl. Brooke juggled with it trying not to make any noise, before she gave away her tenuous position.

When she had finally held the bowl in her hand the top shattered noisily on the wooden floors and Brooke, again, only has seconds before multiple rounds are shot at her head.

After the gunfire stops she takes refuge in the kitchen where Vanessa follows. She has the foresight to open the fridge and take refuge as Vanessa once again shoots at her. Using the fridge she was able to crouch down near their drawers, she searched for anything but she only found a cleaver. One that she heaved over her shoulder and almost embedded in Vanessa’s beautiful face if she had not ducked.

“Your aims just as bad as your cooking, sweetheart! And that’s really saying something.” Brooke yells while Vanessa runs.

Vanessa hid away and Brooke took the time to rip the gas line in half, the smell was horrible but she pulled it onto the counter. As she heard glass crunch under heels she moved away from the gas. Vanessa only shot one round when the entire kitchen ignited. The flames were high and Vanessa flew back while Brooke ran after her.

Brooke made it into the living room just to see Vanessa on the floor, stunned from the fall. Vanessa got onto her knees and stared as Brooke made a come hither motion with her hands while smugly smiling.

“Come on, honey. Come to Mommy.”

Vanessa kicked her legs out and Brooke fell, only to quickly get the upper hand. She lifted Vanessa’s smaller body and rammed it into a glass bookshelf. Then she threw Vanessa’s body onto the couch, just to kick her torso with increasingly less hesitant moves. Vanessa drove her leg out and kicked Brooke right in the crotch, where she promptly fell while Vanessa wound her legs around Brooke’s head.

“Who’s your Mommy, now?”

Brooke pushes her off and when they both looked around their surroundings, their hidden weapons stand out. Making eye contact they both scramble to pick up their guns, when their hands close around them they are pointed at each with no hesitation.

Brooke watches as Vanessa’s determined eyes meet hers. The slowly bleeding cut under her wife’s eye makes her inwardly wince as her multiple wounds burn and sting with each breath taken. There was no way that she was pulling the trigger but she was less confident in Vanessa’s actions, based on what she’s done just hours before. A long tense silence cloaks the room.

“Can’t do it.” she feels her resolve break as she lowers the gun to the ground and stares down the barrel pointing at her body.

“Don’t! Come on!” Vanessa shakes the gun and her head while watching Brooke’s soft gaze on her gun. “Don’t fucking do this!”

“You want it?” Brooke offers her gun to Vanessa while moving closer to her. “It’s yours.”

Brooke invades Vanessa’s personal space and throws both guns down while forcefully kissing her. Vanessa makes an involuntary moan as Brooke picks her up just to push her sore body into a wall.

They make their way through the house with Brooke stopping them in intervals to push Vanessa against a wall, or any flat vertical surface. Moans and pained whimpers fill the air while their battered bodies snatch pleasure from each other.

And when Vanessa is recovering from her fifth orgasm trying to catch her breath she can’t help but smile while getting off of Brooke Lynn’s heated body. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing and her house was completely fucked, but she was laying right next to someone who understood her, finally after six years.

When she had spaced out a gentle hand on her collarbone brings her out of her revere and on her side so that she can face those familiar green eyes. 

“Hi stranger.”

“Hi back.” she can’t keep the smile off her face and neither can Brooke,

Booming knocks reverberate throughout the hole ridden walls. They look at each other panicked, all the gunshots and yelling seemed all consuming while in the moment but reality had just knocked.

Brooke was the only one wearing a bra so she took the lead and put her pants on while Vanessa wrapped a sheet around herself. When she opened the door the Johnsons and three police officers were waiting for them both.

“Yep?”

“We heard an awful lot of noise in here.”

Brooke only cracked the door, the destruction of the house even more evident from the porch lights. 

“Nope, everything’s fine here. Yeah, it’s all great.”

“So you gals are fine?”

“Yup, never better.”

“Nice. So you are-“

Vanessa snatches the door open wider so that her sheet wrapped body was bared for all to see. In turn she also exposed their post battleground foyer and staircase.

“Paul, Susan.”

“You have a nice night. Looks like you’re redecorating, it’s very...... yeah it’s a shame about that red oak.”

The door is closed and everyone outside the door slinks off into embarrassment while Vanessa giggles her way into the sixth orgasm of the night.

///////////////

Loud buzzing and flashing lights are exposed to Nina’s closed eyes and pillow muffled ears while she tried to sleep. 

Nina’s cracks open one blue eye and sees Vanessa’s picture and details under a reward of $400,000. The database was one well known amongst hit people, that meant that Brooke didn’t succeed in killing her controlling wife.

“Tempting. But I don’t get out of bed for less than half a million dollars.”

Nina almost rolls over until a second alert pops onto the screen. Brooke’s picture and details along with a $400,000 reward are seen while Nina sinks down into her bed with a frustrated groan.


	8. Chapter 8

Brooke watches Vanessa’s back as the other woman tip toed on the glass shards peppering the ground on her way to the fridge, one that was spotted with large bullet holes. Vanessa took a pitcher filled with juice and carefully made her way to where Brooke was standing in heavy work boots and a bloodied tank top, and boxer like shorts combination.

Vanessa pushes up the sleeves of the, oversized on her, button up shirt while putting equal measures of juice in cracked glassware.

When she slides Brooke’s glass they air toast and drink from the non sharp edges of the cups while they share smiles. After the meager food is finished cooking they sit side by side on the floor just outside the kitchen.

“That left of yours...” Brooke shakes her head in pride and watches as Vanessa takes on a bashful grin. “It’s a thing of beauty”

“Thank you. But that vacation in Aspen? You left early, why?”

“Honey Davenport.”

“Oh my god!”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted her.”

“Forget it. You didn’t hear me the night the chopper dropped me off for our anniversary dinner?”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“Percussion grenades.” Vanessa explains while moving her hair away from ears and pointing at them. “I was partially deaf that night.”

“I’m slightly color blind.” Brooke offers while nodding. It felt like they were uncovering secrets and theories they had about each other. “Retinal scarring.”

“I can’t feel anything in these three fingers.” Vanessa puts up her last three fingers on her right hand, Brooke holds them loosely and smiles back at her.

“Three ribs. Broken eye socket.”

“Perforated eardrum.”

“You ever have trouble sleeping afterwards?”

“Nope.”

“Me either.” 

They both chuckle and everything is calm while they just enjoy each other’s presence, finally after years of sterility and boredom. A smoke grenade is thrown through the window closest to them, a yellow smoke cloud quickly cloaks the living room while they jump into action and run to the basement.

“Go, Go, go!” Brooke grabs Vanessa by the shirt and guides her, as quietly as she can, to the lower level.

When they get to the basement, Brooke quickly locks the door and runs down the stairs to get her hidden guns within a board game. Vanessa goes to her right and looks out to the door while standing on the cold cement floor.

“Shoes.” Vanessa starts pulling on tall rain boots that come past her knees.

“I was only given 48 hours to take you out.”

“Same.”

“Where’s the trust?”

“What did you fucking expect?”

Brooke finally got both guns and while she was putting a clip in the larger handgun, Vanessa looked towards the smaller revolver with an incredulous expression.

“Why do I get the girly gun?”

“Are you kidding me, right now?” Brooke watches as Vanessa crosses her arms and stomped the oversized boots. She handed over the bigger gun and took the smaller one with a roll of eyes at her wife’s petulance.

Banging and heavy footsteps are heard above them while they crouch and point their guns at the entrance. The sound of the doorknob being removed forcefully and something rolling down the steps cause then to shift. A drone carrying a bomb goes halfway down the steps before dropping it. Brooke kicks it but it goes past the steps and right under a tank full of fuel oil, as indicated by the bright letters.

They look at each other as the beeping of the bomb gets louder and more frantic, they run in sync to the outside basement entrance just before the entire house explodes and flames almost lick the back of their clothes.

The destruction can be heard as the house creaks and groans, shingles and windows falling while huge flames destroy even more of the house that they started destroying hours ago. The masked men in black that carried out the attack are most definitely dead, along with their cars that are in the burning garage. 

“We need a car.” Vanessa is the first to stand up and watch the flames while Brooke is still laying on the ground in shock, their house was gone and now they had to run.

“The Johnson’s.”

//////////////// 

Brooke punched the window to her neighbors garage and shook the glass off while turning the knob. They made their way in and Brooke got into the drivers side while looking around at her surroundings.

“This guy has had my barbecue set for months.” she softly mutters while hot wiring the car.

“I was never in the peace corps.” Vanessa yells while making her way to the passenger side door but not getting in.

“What?” Brooke pauses in her ministrations to watch Vanessa’s guilty face. “I really liked that about you.”

“Look, maybe this whole being honest thing isn’t a good idea.”

“I never went to MIT.”

“Really?”

“I went to Notre Dame. An art history major.”

“Art?” Vanessa laughs and finally gets in the car once Brooke gets the engine running.

“History. It’s reputable.”

Okay. Whatever you say, babe.”

Brooke backed out the garage and a man is seen in the rear view mirror with a gun, so she slams the gas and runs over his body. She gets out of the car and kicks his body before snatching his gun.

“Motherfuckers get younger every year.”

///////////////

They were driving along the highway with Brooke staring determinedly at the road ahead and Vanessa staring at her profile.

“I never really liked your cooking. I’m going to be honest, it’s not your gift.” Brooke confesses with a wary glance at Vanessa.

“Baby, I ain’t never cooked a day in my life. Temp girls cooked all our food.”

“The web of lies!” Brooke yells with fake outrage, while Vanessa giggles and looks into the rear view. 

One car was driving directly behind them, and had been for at least twenty minutes, two cars come from behind the first. They were all the same make and model along with being the same color.

“We got company.”

“Shit!”

Vanessa climbed out of her seat and over the minivans seats to the back. The trunk was ejected by Brooke at her request and dry cleaning, along with miscellaneous sports equipment went spilling on the street.  
She shot at the cars, her bullets ricocheting off the windows because they were bulletproof. Brooke was swerving the car and avoiding the other cars that were getting increasingly closer, while also making it harder for Vanessa to get clear shots.

“Can you keep it steady!”

“It’s called evasive driving, sweetheart.”

“Hold still.”

“This thing is all over the place. How do you drive these things?” Brooke jerked the wheel trying to make it cooperate with no success as Vanessa was moved from her new position in the sun roof.

“Honey! Let me drive!”

“I got it.” Brooke didn’t have it and Vanessa was still being jostled with every jerky movement.

“Move over. Move.” Vanessa pushed on Brooke while the other woman tried to find the best time to make the switch. Brooke grabbed Vanessa and put her on her lap while she slid out from under her. “I’m the suburban housewife, right? It should be easy.”

Brooke opened fire on the cars with just as much success as Vanessa, she realized quickly that the cars were bulletproof.

“They’re bulletproof.” Vanessa offers to deaf ears while Brooke takes a minute to reload and face the road and her chair.

“They’re bulletproof!” Brooke yells while Vanessa rolls her eyes at Brooke’s disregard of her opinion.

As Brooke leaned back on the seats, she felt the need to confess a not so serious secret, one that she had kept for at least ten years.

“I think I should tell you that I’ve been married before.”

Vanessa slammed on the brakes just to shoot at the men hanging off the cars, when she had righted the car, Brooke looked at her incredulously.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re what’s wrong with me!”

“It was a drunken Vegas thing.”

Brooke went back to the trunk as one of the cars got closer with a man standing on the windshield. While punching him in the torso Brooke accidentally pulled the pin from a grenade, she only noticed when winding her arm back to punch him again.

She threw it at him and scrambled to the front where Vanessa was, staring angrily at the road while talking under her breath.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Vanessa sped up and the grenade exploded which gave them a small boost.

“What’s her name and social security number?”

“No, you’re not going to kill her.”

Brooke opened up a side door as a man jumped into the car, she pushed him out the side and closed the door afterwards.

“These doors are handy.” Brooke continues to throw men out of the doors as they jumped in and out of the minivan. “I think you’re being more than a little bit hypocritical. It’s not like you’re a beacon of truth.”

“Brooke Lynn..... my parents died when I was six. I’m an orphan”

“Well then who the fuck was that guy that gave you away at our wedding?”

“A paid actor.” Vanessa winces as Brooke shakes her head in confusion and betrayal. She just so happened to meet every member of Brooke’s family while she had paid and bribed everyone on her side to even show up.

“I said I saw your dad on Drag Race.”

“I know.”

“I don’t even want to talk about it.”

Brooke leaned out the car and shot at the cars while Vanessa consciously slowed down so that she could get the right shot.

“You got it?” Vanessa questions when it’s been only seconds of Brooke concentrating.

“Got it.”

“Any time now.”

“I got it.”

Vanessa drifted the car so that she was now facing the other cars, with one hand on the wheel and the other holding her gun she shot at the engine of each car until the cars exploded. Once the damage had been done she turned the car around and avoided eye contact with an angry Brooke Lynn.

“We’re going to have to redo every single conversation we’ve ever had.” 

The cars weren’t following them and Vanessa had finally started abiding by the speed limit and traffic regulations.

“I’m Jewish.”

“I cannot believe that I brought my actual parents to the wedding.”

/////////////////////

“Disgusting. How could they serve this.” Nina looked around the diner while people and the wait staff ignored her and her exclamations. “Ma’am, can this be reheated? Miss? Miss, I’m speaking to you. Excuse me?” 

The waitress walked right by without eye contact while Nina purposefully turned her body to catch her attention. When she turned back on her seat, there was Brooke, in a tight fitting dodgeball hoodie.

Her various cuts and tired eyes tell her predicament more than her words ever could.

“Jesus, Brooke.”

“Morning.”

“It’s good to see you okay. Did you finally kill the lying bitch?”

“This lying bitch?” Vanessa quips from the left of Nina while she turns her head comically fast to catch the unimpressed look on said bitch’s face.

“Guess that was just wishful thinking.” Nina looks back at Brooke and noticed that they are wearing matching hoodies but Brooke’s was two times too small while Vanessa’s was somehow perfectly fitted. “I’m sorry.”

“Nina.” Brooke gives her a look of disappointment and takes a sip of the awful coffee before spitting it back out immediately.

“It’s nice to see you, Vanessa.” Nina grits out like her name is acid.

“Nina. Nina! You need to focus because we have problems.”

“Problems? Heroine addicts have problems, my friend. You two are smoked.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? You got the entire agency gunning for you. Probably her agency too.”

“And what about you? Where are you at?”

“Me? Where am I? I found myself dragging my feet this morning. I also think you owe me a little bit of money too.”

“So what does.....” Vanessa doesn’t finish as she gives Brooke a look, it was a weird understanding look, almost like they had made up and feel in love within the hours before their projected deaths.

“We don’t understand each other, but I don’t need those looks. I’ve been in her life a long time.”

“Focus, Nina. Focus.”

“A long time.” Nina points at Vanessa while she still looks at the two friends, but mostly Nina in disapproval and thinly veiled distrust.

“I’m pissed the fuck off. They blew up my house, shot at my wife. My own company”

“If she works for who the street stays she works for then..... you’re Target and Walmart. Then she would be the MTV channel and you would be.... whatever competes with the MTV channel. You know what I’m saying?” Nina finally has both of their undivided attention, without any hostility as she tries to make comparisons on the fly. “The point is very simple. Once you guys get off the reservation, that’s it. Then you’re off the reservation.”

“Nina, how bad is it?”

“You remember Russia? Kids stuff to this.”

“That was you?” Vanessa questions Brooke with a dark glimmer in her eyes, it was like Brooke had doused herself in pheromones.

“Is that a turn-on for you? Didn’t she try to kill you with her car? You know what, a good friend stays out of it. If you two separate from each other, then you actually have a shot.” Brooke looks at Vanessa with a renewed hope that makes Nina sick with the implication of that outcome of events. “Brooke, it’s only a shot. If you two stay together, you’re dead. Unless you can find something they want more than you.”

The two wives share a look, almost like they had both got the same destructive idea. When they are finished with their weird eye contact they turn back to Nina, who now knows that she should worry about her friends life.

//////////////

“I found him. She’s being held in sub-basement D of the federal courthouse. There’s high security, motion detectors and thermal. Powers on the city grid. This is as far as we go, Vanessa.”

Silky sent the details over to Vanessa through the computer she was typing in. She didn’t want her to die but if the bitch wanted to stay with her crazy ass wife, she would be supportive for however long Vanessa would let her.

“Right. Thanks for everything, Silk.”

“Good luck, baby.”

///////////////////

“........and this south-westerly blow coming down from the middle of the country.....”

“Do you guys mind changing the channel?” Trinity asks the men playing cards from her position within a cage tied up.

“....one is moving in now....”

“Gary, could you please get off your lard ass and change the channel?” Trinity gets aggressive and watches as they still sit around and ignore her. “I know it’s tough. Thank you.” Gary stood up and just when Trinity thought that he would fulfill her wishes her turned the tv off and ignored her protestations. 

////////////////

“You grab the kid. Simple and clean. Got it?”

“Got it.” Brooke checked her bullet clip and once she was satisfied she snapped it back in place just so that she could have something to do with her hands. “Tell me, how many?”

“Does it matter?” Vanessa reluctantly answered while pretending to be focusing on her computer.

“Should I go first? Okay..... I don’t exactly keep count but.... I would say.... high 50’s maybe low 60’s.” Brooke admits while trying to gauge Vanessa reaction. “I’ve been around the block but the important thing is-“

“304.”

“-how?”

“Some were two at a time.”

Brooke’s face had changed from hesitant to completely blank and that worried Vanessa, but the bigger issue had to be dealt with, not Brooke Lynn feelings over something she thought was trivial.

////////////

“You monitoring the perimeter?”

“I checked the perimeter.”

“What’s about police bands?”

“I’m on the police bands.”

Brooke shimmied her way through wet tunnels while taking direction from Vanessa and her map.

“This ain’t my first time.”

“I think we’ve established that.”

“All right. Turn left.” Vanessa watches as Brooke shook her head where the camera was. “Left, Brooke. Left.”

“You don’t need to talk to me like that. Okay? Be nice.”

“Left, please.”

“I can’t go left. See? There’s no left” Brooke takes off the camera from her head and shows the wall to her left and the dark murky waters soaking through her tactical clothes. “I have straight or back the way I came.”

“There’s no left?”

“Which way do you want?”

“Just wait for my mark and stay there.”

“Do you see what I’m sitting in? You see that?” Brooke once again brought the camera to her water covered legs while Vanessa searches the map she was given with a furrow in her brow. “Take your time.”

“Yeah, all right. Stay! Stay there and wait for my mark. I’ll find it, just wait for my mark. Almost there.” Vanessa followed her finger that was trying to make its way to where they knew Trinity would be and where Brooke currently was. “I don’t know what happened, just hold on.”

The camera was moving backwards and it was clear that Brooke was leaving her position and ignoring Vanessa’s commands of giving her time.

“Brooke Lynn what are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Cut the lights off at my signal.” Vanessa could see through the camera that Brooke was running up a staircase, before she could hack the lights Brooke encountered two men walking right towards her. “Now. Kill the lights.”

Vanessa has just barely cut the lights before the men muttered about the malfunction. She could hear bodies dropping and Brooke’s silencer.

“Turn them back on.”

Brooke made her way through the compound until she got to the door where Trinity was. She set down the sticky bomb on the door and ran to a corner. Once she had pressed the button the smoke cloaked the hallway and room along with the door being strewn down the stairs. Brooke used her arms to swing from the door to jump over the staircase.

In the room a few men lay dazed from the explosion and others were pointing their weapons at her. She shot them before they could think about doing it to her and she started towards Trinity who was still talking about wanting a gun.

///////////////

“Zip it!” Brooke punched the bag that carried Trinity and opened the door to the van that Vanessa was in. “This gals a wily one.” she set the young woman down and watched as Vanessa crosses her arms and gave her a pissed off look.

“You didn’t wait for my signal.”

“I improvised.”

“You deviated from my plan.”

“The plan was flawed.” Brooke slammed the van door and walked outside to get into the passenger side so that she wouldn’t have to walk past the angry woman. Vanessa stomped over to the drivers seat and she started driving after they had both got seatbelts on. “Anal.”

“Organized.”

“90 percent of this job is pure instinct.”

“Your fucking instincts set off every goddamn alarm in that building.”

“And I got the job done. It’s not the Vanessa show.”

“No, it’s the Brooke show. Half assed, with me picking up the pieces of your decisions. Like Christmas, or our anniversary, that time you forgot to bring my mothers birthday present.”

“Your fake mothers birthday.”

“You’re always the first person to break rank.”

“You don’t want to be a team, you want a servant for hire.”

“I want someone I can count on, dependable.”

“Vanessa, there’s no air around you anymore.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that there’s no room for mistakes, I can’t fuck up whatsoever. No spontaneity. Who can ever answer to that?”

“Well you don’t have to, cause this isn’t a real marriage anyway.” Vanessa speeds up the car and stirs in her anger while Brooke does the same while looking out her window.

////////////////

Brooke snatched the bag from Trinity’s head and sat back down on her chair that was facing their hostage. Vanessa was sat on one of the cheap beds from the motel and filing her nails with a bored but pissed look.

“Who are you, people?”

“Shut up!” Brooke watched the woman struggle against her bonds that weren’t going to give. “Okay, so I realized that you witnessed the missus and I working through some domestic issues. That’s regrettable, but don’t take that as weakness, that would be a very big mistake. Huge. Now tell us what you know, why do our bosses want you dead? Do you unde-. Honey? Please?”

Vanessa stopped tapping her nails obnoxiously on the wooden bedside table at Brooke’s annoyed request. She was disgruntled and the longer they spent on asking the bitch questions, the less time they had to get the target off their backs.

“Wrap it up.”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to undermine me in front of the hostage. It sends a mixed message.” Brooke says through gritted teeth while their tied up companion watches on as their glares escalate.

“Sorry.” Vanessa says in a not sorry tone of voice.

“Okay then. Where was I?”

“A mistake on your part?”

“Shut up. Now options, I’m going to lay them out for you. Option A...”

“If I could ju-“

“Shut up. Option A, you talk, we listen, there’s no pain. Option B, you don’t talk then I remove your thumbs with my pliers. It will hurt. Option C, I like to vary the details a bit but the punch line is that you die. We’re impatient people, Trinity.”

“Can I get a soda or something? Or a juice maybe? Maybe a-, Option A, A!” Vanessa got up out of her position and yanked the phone out of the socket just to rush Trinity and slam the telephone against her plastic face. “Ow! That hurt.”

“Okay, that was a good shot.” Brooke was semi impressed but she would never say that to Vanessa. “What’s-, do you have a spasm?” their hostage was squirming in her chair and looking at Vanessa in fear.

“I’m tied up. Why don’t you just check my back pocket.”

Vanessa pushed the other woman’s body out of the way and snatched the piece of paper out of her back pocket. When she unraveled the paper her face went from indifferent to shocked. It was a surveillance picture of her and Brooke smiling at each other. 

“I’m not the target, you two are. They found out that you were married, so they teamed up and sent you the same hit. It was a joint task force, both companies working together. Two competing agents living under the same roof? It’s looks really bad for business, they wanted you to take each other out.” Trinity watched as Vanessa got closer to Brooke to lean on her chair, almost like she couldn’t support herself anymore.

“You were the bait.”

“Well, it’s entry level, toehold into the company. Take a couple of hits and they bump me up into a desk. It’s been pretty cool, actually.”

“You keep the picture in your pocket?” Brooke plucked the paper from Vanessa’s hand and ripped it up, they looked too happy.

“Was I supposed to frame it?”

“You burn it. You get rid of it, anyway you can. It’s tradecraft 101.”

“Guess I skipped that class then. Just like you did when you married the enemy.”

“Wait, you were bait or you are bait?” Vanessa finally speaks after waking herself from the stupor that the mass betrayal caused, the agency was like her family.

“Belt. Belt!”

Brooke took a hold of the belt and opened up the buckle to find a tracking device, a beacon that had her location and fasting moving objects that were coming closer with each second.

“We have a two minutes.”

Brooke and Vanessa share a look while Trinity slumps against her seat, she wasn’t supposed to tell them anything, but damn was the brunette scary.

“One minute.”

They snap out of their staring and Trinity finds herself with a bag over head as heavy boots and helicopter blades sound overhead and all around the motel room.


	9. Chapter 9

A motel door is broken down in two as multiple men, in tactical head and body armor search the room. A tied up, blindfolded woman sits in a chair hearing the swift footsteps and various shouts of clear.

“A little help here?” a southern accent calls out into the air.

When a man pulls back a curtain it shows a hole that goes through multiple rooms, they had escaped once again.

/////////////////

Black boots run over the grate that Brooke and Vanessa are under, squished down to the floor. Various debris only seems to be falling on Brooke while Vanessa looks up, trying to determine where people are and how she’s going to get out of this situation.

“My way out is a boat standing in La Paz.” Brooke looks at her with a shocked face, she had one too.

“Cargo drop, Altas mountain. But what does that matter?”

“So we can know what our odds are. Let’s call it like it is, and what it ain’t.” 

“So what we have a crap marriage, and I’m a mess and you’re a disaster. We’re both liars but if we run, we will always be running. I say we stay and fight, we finish this thing.... and in the end if you want to leave, you can go.”

“Well, thank you.” Vanessa avoids eye contact while Brooke looks on incredulous at her fake noble act, she knew that the other woman didn’t want to separate, it was all over her face.

“Like seriously. ‘Let’s call it like it is’, jesus fucking Christ.” Brooke mocks her while Vanessa gets an angry look on her face.

A quick jab is thrown at her side and she recoils as much as she can in the limited space, even more less accommodating to her taller body. 

“Stop.” Vanessa threatens with the slight raise of her hand while Brooke tries to move away from her, a single dirty leaf finding its way through the gate and on her cheek.

“Don’t.”

////////////

The bright shine of a helicopters flashlight beam almost hits them multiple times as they stealthily but quickly make their way to a home goods store. When they just barely round a corner before the light can hit them Brooke uses a crowbar to pop the locked door and guide Vanessa inside, once she had shut the broken door behind them the dark store greeted them. Furniture, appliances, yard accessories and more were littered throughout as Brooke walked to find a spot to reload and prepare. 

“This is a really good store.”

Once she found a spot Vanessa stood around until she found a mannequin, she had somehow convinced Brooke that an outfit change was necessary. When they stepped out of their makeshift dressing rooms, Vanessa looked at the light gray suit Brooke wore and Brooke looked at the dark suit Vanessa picked through yellow tinted glasses.

“See you in another lifetime, Vanessa.”

“Back at ya.”

As they shared soft smiles the doors were being busted open and Brooke got into a crouched position behind counters while Vanessa got down on her left. While looking around for possible assailants Vanessa saw a knife cart, or an opportunity. She gestured for Brooke’s attention and once the other woman nodded she took off her jacket and placed her gun in the cart. 

Vanessa pushed the cart and threw knives at every person she saw, some getting two and three in their necks at a time. Brooke had just taken down two with well placed rifle hits and as Vanessa came into view a knife was thrown just over her shoulder. Another knife was thrown in quick succession, only it buried itself in her thigh while she looked at Vanessa in annoyance.

“Sorry.” Vanessa got closer and abandoned her cart after getting her gun, she looked distinctly not sorry.

“We will talk about this later.” Brooke took the knife out without wincing and strapped it to her belt while following Vanessa.

As they made their way through the men in total silence Brooke took two red monkey wrench’s and used them like nunchucks to take down three men, once she had finished she made a silly pose and exaggerated gestures, Vanessa barely contained her giggles before turning around slashing a mans ankle. 

Brooke had her gun out and with Vanessa in front of her she turned to watch her back, in turning she hit a stack of baked bean cans, every single can fell down in loud clanks and noise some even rolling over to Vanessa, who stood fuming.

“Jesus fuck!”

“I didn’t touch anything.” Brooke winces and looks around for the inevitable onslaught of bullets to rain down on them.

“Yes, you did!”

Before they can argue more the shots ring out and they duck as every place they walk towards is littered with noise and bullet-ridden home furniture. The elevator was open so they shoot at the people as the doors close, the happy, almost jaunty tune a direct contrast to their current predicament.

“I’m real sorry about the knife in the...”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Brooke doesn’t look over at Vanessa as the doors open and they are shot at, it lasts until the doors close and they sit in silence until they open again, this time met with less bullets.

They step out and its clear that they will be surrounded within a few minutes.

“I’ll fly.”

“I’ll be the bait. I’m going clockwise so watch my 6.” Brooke throws over her shoulder while Vanessa hikes up a sniper rifle over her shoulder and climbs the rafters of the superstore. She had been shooting at the barely visible people while Vanessa took them out from above, it had been working for however long her clip lasted, and when she turned for a breather and reload she saw Vanessa’s body fall from the rafters and onto the floor. She couldn’t hear the smaller woman’s body drop over the sound of her frantic heartbeat and gunshots that were being directed at any person close to her as she shot her way to where Vanessa was.

When she got to her she crouched down and checked over her with her eyes and hands, patting around her chest just to thank the bulletproof vests they were both wearing. It was clear that Vanessa was okay but she purposefully put herself in between the line of fire while they made their way to a shed, they had just gotten in when the wooden structure was riddled with holes, they had just enough time to duck and let the bags of manure protect them.

Vanessa slipped the lock closed, despite it probably not doing anything useful. They both caught their breath while Brooke leaned against the bags and Vanessa ripped her dress shirt off her body to reveal a dark gray shirt and her bulletproof vest, that had clearly been used. She then went over and tied a tourniquet on Brooke’s arm after watching the other woman struggle to put it on with one hand without asking for help.

Vanessa looked out of one of the holes and saw a dark store, figures were moving but their positions were unknown and hard to gauge, distance wise at least.

“How’s it looking?”

“A piece of cake.”

Brooke finally sat up and doled out the guns, she specifically gave Vanessa more guns and accessories to kill, if someone was going to make it, she would make sure that it was the brunette woman and not her.

“Watch these, they can jam. So watch them and you favor your left so I’ll cover your right.” Brooke hands her a final gun and watches as Vanessa mentally prepares herself. She felt guilty for basically setting up this death sentence for them, she could have let Vanessa a go and done this suicide mission on her own. “Fuck, that boat in La Paz is probably looking really good right now, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s real rainy this time of year.” Vanessa shrugs and ignores Brooke’s guilty face, this was the most fun and interesting thing they had done together, since never. “There really is no place I’d rather be, than right here and now with you.” at Brooke’s bashful smile and sappy look she rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”

Brooke leaned in for a kiss that Vanessa immediately reciprocated, it tasted like a promise and not a goodbye. 

When the door of the shed opens they both jump out to gunshots that they are ready for, shooting at every target with practiced precision they cover each other’s back. Brooke will throw something while Vanessa ducks and Vanessa will push Brooke away from the line of fire while raining down on someone in return. Eventually they find themselves chest to face, their guns out facing their assailants and firing at anything that moves. It was almost a dance of destruction and when they are both on the ground and spent, it’s silent.

There is only open fires and complete chaos surrounding them while their heavy breaths almost cover up the sound of their thundering hearts. They had done it, it seemed like everyone was dead and they weren’t, so technically they had done it.

///////////////

“I’m extremely interested in all the progress you have made in these past weeks.” The therapist starts off while looking at the two relaxed women in adjacent chairs.

“We’re doing all right, aren’t we? I’m not gonna bullshit you, there were times that I wanted to-“ Brooke cuts herself off to motion a neck snapping while clicking her tongue as Vanessa looks at her with her finger in between pearly whites. “kill her, but-“

“Likewise.”

“I couldn’t take the shot.” Brooke finished with a smile and she leaned back into the chair while taking ahold of Vanessa smaller hand and cradling it.

“Well that’s a very good sign.”

“Who would’ve thought.”

“You gotta battle through.”

“That’s marriage though, right?”

“Yup, you take your best shot and....”

“We redid the whole house.” Vanessa slightly embellishes, they had to build a new house because all that was left were bodies and rubble.

“Yeah, we did.”

“You know that there will be challenges? Threats to this?” he points at them both and the air between them.

“Yup.”

“But you can handle it together.”

“So far.” Brooke misses the sharp look Vanessa gives her and happily continues to continue that conversation.

“Yea, we can. What’s with the ‘so far’?”

“It’s leaving room for the unknown.” 

“So far. How do you feel your relationship styles have been more conducive to-“

“Ask the sex question.” Brooke interrupts with a giddy grin while Vanessa looks embarrassed, her face heating up without any visible redness.

“Brooke.”

“Well that...”

Brooke holds up all her fingers and mouths ten while Vanessa shoves her shoulder and she laughs because despite Vanessa’s apparent embarrassment she had a contagious smile on her beautiful face.

“So I assume that you two are happy?”

“Yes, I know that we are.”

They smile over at each other and in Brooke Lynn’s eyes Vanessa can see an actually fulfilling life, one without a huge secret between them, and Brooke can see the new spark in Vanessa’s eyes, one that had been dimmed for far too long.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything has only been proofread by me.  
> All constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated.


End file.
